How to make bread in five minutes a day?

The secret is homemade stored dough, mixed and refrigerated for up to two weeks... more

About

How to make bread in five minutes a day? The secret is homemade stored dough, mixed and refrigerated for up to two weeks. You’ve made enough dough for many loaves, so you can take a piece from the fridge whenever you need it. Mix once, bake many…

(photo by Stephen Gross)

How we became a team (through a bit of sheer luck)…

In 2000, Jeff called in on the radio (Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s The Splendid Table on NPR) to describe a super-fast bread recipe. It produced artisan loaves with active preparation time of five minutes a day. An editor from a major US publisher was listening to the radio show & asked for a book proposal. Nothing happened until…

…Jeff & Zoë met while their toddlers were in a music class together. The kids played xylophones & they talked gluten cloaking. They got busy with a book proposal and eventually, the manuscript for a book, which was released by St. Martin’s Press on November 13, 2007. Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day met the needs of an amateur like Jeff (it’s fast & easy), but it gives results professional enough to be served by Zoë, a pastry chef & baker trained at the Culinary Institute of America. Within a month of release, Artisan Bread became the number one bread cookbook on Amazon.com. Our books have been covered by the New York Times, The Associated Press, and the Today Show, among others.

Jeff Hertzberg, M.D. grew up eating great bread and pizza in New York City. He continues to preach the importance of moderation and variety in a healthy diet, and works as a consultant and academic focusing on health-improvement programs. He parlayed an obsession with bread and pizza into a second career as an author. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two daughters.

Zoë François is a pastry chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America. In addition to teaching baking and pastry courses nationally, Zoe develops dessert menus for award-winning restaurants, and creates recipe content for The Cooking Channel, Fine Cooking Magazine, Cooking Club Magazine, zoebakes.com and Craftsy. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband & two sons.

Sarah Kieffer joined our team as a bread-baking blogger, recipe tester and photographer in 2013. More of her incredible photography and pastries can be found on her beautiful website The Vanilla Bean Blog.

The Books:

Jeff & Zoë wrote their first book, The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day(2007) so that baking homemade bread would be easy enough to become a daily ritual for everyone. That includes people struggling to balance work, family, friends, & social life (pretty much all of us). They refined their method for refrigerator-stored artisan dough while juggling busy careers and families. The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day was released in response to reader requests for more recipes and techniques.

Their second book, The Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (2009), takes that same super-fast approach but applies it to healthier ingredients like whole grains, fruits, & vegetables. A dozen of the recipes are 100% whole grain, and for the first time, they included a chapter on gluten-free breads. They published the The New Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (2016) with even more whole grain recipes, a super-fast sourdough starter, weight measurements, more pictures and tips to create great hearty loaves with many types of flour.

270 thoughts on “About”

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I have your first two books love them both and truly enjoy making (and eating the bread). I found recently that I am prediabetic and need to cut way back on the carbs. Can your recipes be converted for almond, soy or coconut flour? Or do you have other ways to cut back on the carbs.

There is a lovely almond coconut bread in our Gluten-Free book, but is also has flours and starches. There is no way for us to convert to the flours you ask about, since our dough is stored in the refrigerator for a number of days and those flours don’t provide enough, if any, structure. I’ve tried it and they just turn to mush. I think they are better off used as quick breads. I know that Peter Reinhart has a book that is designed for diabetics and he does a wonderful job.

The only way we’ve found to cut back on carbs is to eat smaller portions, but that’s different than what you are asking.

America’s test kitchen released a Gluten Free baking magazine where they analyze and test gluten free baking. They say gluten free flour has less protein than regular flour and when they added protein, by using powdered skim milk, their flour reacted more like regular flour. Have you done any testing using higher protein additives? Most people with gluten freen allergies are also allergic to milk but if the issue is “protein” how about soy flour or?

This is an interesting concept. We did play with soy flour, but we didn’t end up using it, because a lot of people are also sensitive to soy products. The higher protein bean flours were also too intense tasting and didn’t make for a tasty bread. If you find a combination that you like please let us know.

Hi… I have your first two books and the new gluten free bread book…. I know that publications often have mistakes in printing… Where can I find corrections or errata for your books…. I have been searching the web with no luck. Thanks Rochelle

Thanks so much for sending me the list of corrections… However, I didn’t see anything for the Gluten Free Artisan Bread… Currently waiting for my orders to be fulfilled from Amazon… There are so many different flours that my local stores don’t carry…

I do have one other question regarding Gluten free bread… Reading some posts where they recommend using carbonated water (seltzer) in place of water in some recipes…. Have you tried any GF bread with seltzer? … What do you think about that and how will it effect the bread?….

We’ve not found any errors that are worthy of the list! Phew!! If we find any, we’ll put them up ASAP!

It is an interesting question about the seltzer, but we didn’t try it since we store our dough for so long and the effects of it would not likely last in those conditions. If you do try it, please let me know how it goes.

Hi Zoe… back again with another question…. Got a beautiful Kitchen Aid mixer for a Hanukkah gift…. However it is the new 7 quart professional…. I read your notes where you recommend the use of the 5 or 6 quart stand mixer… Love my mixer but want to know how to compensate for the larger stand mixer…. BTW I just love your books and am going to take the Craftsy course as well…. Finally got all my flours and prepared the master mixtures last week. and today I am going to test waters with your Challah recipe… Will let you know how it turns out with my 7 Quart Kitchen Aid…. Any suggestions regarding my mixer would be appreciated…. sincerely Rochelle…..

I’m the one that’s tested the bigger mixer–though actually the 6-quart, not the 7.

For GF doughs, I’ve found that the smaller mixers just do a better job. You might have to switch to the dough hook rather than the paddle we recommend in the books but experiment and see what you think. For the sandwich bread, try the recipe on page 85 of the GF book.

Hi Jeff. I just got your book on gluten free artisan bread and was excited to try the recipes. I made the master dough with amt of water recommended and let it rise for two hours. Dough was very dry and did not rise in the over. I have since added more water to make it wetter but I don’t know if this was ok to do. What should I do? I don’t have a mixer so I had to mix by hand. Any suggestions?

Hi jeff. Im loving ur gf bread recipe bk! Question: im planning on using nuts.com flours as they have a lower gluten level. Any ideas on how that will effect ur dough? Moisture level etc. Also any odeas on how to fix it??

None of the flours we call for in the gluten-free book have any gluten at all, so I am not sure what you mean by “lower gluten level?” We have tested all the recipes with Bob’s Red Mill flours, since we found them to be the most consistent source. Nuts.com seems to sell all the same flours, but we’ve not tested with them, so I am not sure if they will behave the same?

If you are planning to use actual nut flours, then you will have trouble with the recipes, since they provide no structure in the dough and make the breads quite dense.

Question one: the oatmeal bread and the granola bread are a bit too sweet for my taste. If I reduce the syrup (honey/maple) do I need to adjust anything else – like liquid?

Question two: does Bob’s Red Mill unbleached white flour work more like KA or more like Gold medal?

Question three: today I did 2/3 of recipe for basic bread and the water was easy and the salt and yeast were easy – but I did 1.5 pounds of flour (2/3 of 2 pounds) and it was VERY wet – I have made this bread many times so I know what it supposed to look like, so I added more flour. But have I missed something in figuring out 2/3 of 2 pounds???

I love using a scale – boy, is it easier (except today it didn’t seem to work!)

Depending on how much you’re decreasing the sweetener, you may need to increase the liquids. If it is just by a couple of tablespoons, then it won’t make much of a difference. If you decrease the honey by 1/4 cup, just add 2 tablespoons of water to compensate.

Great question about Bob’s unbleached AP flour. I didn’t use it for testing, so I am not sure. I will try to find out.

2/3 of the recipe I get:

2 cups (16oz) water
22oz flour (I rounded up very slightly)

This is even less flour than you used, so it seems it would be even wetter. Is there a chance you used more water than you recall?

I live in Denver, 5280 feet. I made the dough according to the recipe. It wasn’t very wet. When baked it did not rise well, and was very dense and a bit wet at 35 minutes. The crust was great, and the taste was good. Just too dense and wet, no holes. ? Suggestions. Help!

I am using the 5 minute artisan bread recipe. It calls for 6 1/2 c. All purpose flour by scoop and sweep method. I may not have done that correctly. Also I used King Arthur bread flour. A mistake there?
I made a second loaf from the same batch of dough. Let it set out on the counter, from the fridge, for a couple hours. It rose a bit, and did make a better loaf when baked. Still quite dense, no holes.

Assume you mean the Chapter 5 recipe from our book “The New Artisan Bread in Five Min/Day.” Check out the high-altitude corrections on page 46, and see this video on or FAQs tab above: “Measuring flour by volume: How we measured when we tested the recipes (scoop-and-sweep”

I am just learning about sprouted spelt flour and other sprouted flours. I am a diet-controlled diabetic and find I tolerate the sprouted spelt flour well, so I will be trying other sprouted flours, too. The sprouted spelt flour is low glycemic since the body processes it more like a vegetable, and it is interchangeable with wheat flour, but have you tried it with this method? I thought I would ask the experts before I try it because the sprouted flours are rather pricey, but commonly available at Sprouts, Whole Foods, etc. Thanks!

Hi – I’m a first-time visitor to your site. Just finished reading “Healthy Bread in Five” and the “New Artisan Bread in Five.” I haven’t made yeast bread in decades, because of the time commitment. Now that I know about your method, I’m looking at buying a few things for bread-baking. On the left side of the “About” page of your site (http://artisanbreadinfive.com/authors-and-photographer) below the pictured of your books, I am seeing a bar with several products listed, e.g., pizza stone, Chicago Metallic loaf pan, and they link to Amazon pages for those products. My question is: Are these products you use and think are good for your style of bread-making, or is this just Amazon advertising? I’m not a regular reader of blogs and the like, so I can’t tell.
Cheers,
Amy

Thanks for your answer! You’ve helped me pick out a baking stone. I may have to bake my first loan on an ordinary half sheet, though – don’t know whether I can wait for the official baking stone to arrive. Can almost smell the baking bread, already. . . .
Cheers,
Amy

First I’d like to say that I’ve been making bread your way for a long time. We love it. Thank you.
Recently, my 32 year old oven died just after I put the bread in the oven. There probably wasn’t a connection, but have you heard of any problems with electric ovens and the steam that is used in baking the bread? The new control boards are so expensive, I would hate to have any problems.

Just bought your book The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day in Kindle format. I have only tried the master recipe but am looking forward to trying the rest.
Is there a place where I can download a copy of the Index. Since clicking on the index does not take you to the location in the ebook I would like to print it and mark it with the locations of the recipes.

I made this bread a couple of times. Bt it does not raise as good as yours. I would like to see it come out like that. I tried putting paper around the dough but it still flatens out. What am I doing wrong? I mease eveerything exactly. I am wondering if it may be the flour. Pleasse advise. I would like to make a loaf like the picture. I have never heard it crackle either.